The Laurel of Defiance - Guy Haley Read online

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  The Laurel of Defiance – Guy Haley

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  THE LAUREL OF DEFIANCE

  Guy Haley

  They called him the killer of Titans.

  Lucretius Corvo did not care for the title. He was captain of the 90th Company of the XIII Legion. That was honour enough for him.

  In Martial Square, Corvo stood with the veterans of the Shadow Crusade and the atrocity at Calth. Ten files of thirteen: officers, battle-brothers and neophytes ordered without deference to rank. They were joined by brotherhood of a kind that transcended the boundaries of Chapter, station and company.

  Inhumanly large and resplendent in their battleplate, they scintillated in the bright sun of Macragge, their badges of service and recognition crisp with fresh paint. Many times Corvo had stood in noble assemblage with his brothers, but never in one quite like this.

  Once uniform in everything, the hammers of war had wrought the Ultramarines variously, beating out a different tune on each of them. Armour of differing marks mixed in their ranks and within individual sets. Battle salvage and worn elements had been lovingly restored by the Legion artisans rather than replaced. Commendation studs, non-regulation weaponry and unique war-plate revealed the identity of their wearer for all to see. Personal foibles sanctioned and let speak of victory, victory, victory!

  They bore the marks of their actions proudly. They had prevailed against all odds, and they were to be honoured for it.

  Amongst this august company, Corvo nevertheless stood out. He was taller than many of his gene-kin – that was a factor, yes, as was the massive suit of Mark III armour that singled him out as a void-war specialist. But it was the unique nature of his colours that set him truly apart. The cobalt-blue of his plate was quartered with bone-white. His personal banner, hanging from a pole mounted on his power plant, was likewise divided. It bore the emblems of the Ninth Chapter and the 90th Company. In the top left field was a spiked, hollow circle: a dark blue starburst.

  This was not of Legion origin.

  Serried ranks filled the rest of the square, representatives of every military force currently on Macragge – three Legions, the Imperial Army, and others. At the north and south, a pair of Warlord Titans stood sentinel. The eyes of millions of citizens watched the ceremony, hundreds of thousands in the vast crowds beyond the square alone. They were quiet. All of Macragge listened respectfully.

  Three primarchs occupied a grand dais beneath the massive Propylae Titanicum.

  Sanguinius stood forward and centre as befitted his status as Imperial Regent. He shone with his customary radiance, but appeared troubled even so. He said little, and the enigmatic Lion El’Jonson even less. Today was their brother Roboute Guilliman’s day – the master of Ultramar and the XIII Legion. Today the sacrifices of his realm, his people, were to be remembered. His words boomed out across the square – dozens of names, dozens of victories, dozens of heroes born from the horrors of defeat.

  Guilliman honoured the unenhanced first, scores of mortal men and women who had defied the traitors, whether by lasgun and blade, or through acts of less obvious heroism: a scholam mistress who had led three hundred children to safety, a fabricatory adept who had worked for ten days without rest when his fellows had fled, and the sole survivor of a hundred port workers who had marched their industrial loaders into the enemy.

  The Legiones Astartes waited motionless in the sun. Hours passed. The bulk of the southern Titan draped Corvo in welcome shadow for a while, but soon enough he was in the sun’s full glare again. Half the standard humans had yet to be feted.

  The sun was westering when the last bowed before the giant lords of men and walked away. A scroll was unfurled by Guilliman’s equerry. Now it was time for the Ultramarines to pay respect to their brothers.

  These were the champions of Ultramar.

  The first name was read out. Honours were stated and bestowed. Short words from the primarch. The receiver renewed his oaths of loyalty. He was only the first to do so.

  Corvo’s hands twitched.

  The night before. With Guilliman there was always a night before, or a night after. Feasts and parties went with his honour-giving like bolts went with boltguns. He held it important for his sons to mingle with the citizens, another chore in preparing themselves for peaceful duties once war was done.

  It was clear now that those days would never come. Corvo expected ambivalence at the thought – he was made for war, after all – but found melancholy instead. Guilliman’s dream was fading.

  The whole of the Regia Civitata had been given over to the function. Inside its baroque halls, the one hundred and thirty mingled with the common mortals of Ultramar. The Space Marines stood like adults in a room of children, but the two strands of humanity were, for the most part, at ease with one another. The primarchs were absent from the pre-feast socialising, a calculated decision on Guilliman’s part.

  Corvo wore a simple, formal uniform, like all those who were to be honoured. Even so, he carried his gladius and bolt pistol on a broad belt. Events of the last few months had taught the XIII to be cautious. Members of the Invictus Guard stood garbed for battle at the main entrance. Around the perimeter and on the roof, the Praecental Guard and legionary brothers of the First Chapter patrolled. This heightened security saddened Corvo further. As much as the captain disliked company, Guilliman did not. It was important for his lord to be comfortable among his people. Distance was growing between the shepherd and his flock.

  A woman was talking to Corvo. He reminded himself to pay attention to her.

  ‘So much heroism,’ the woman was saying.

  ‘War breeds heroes,’ said Corvo, and immediately felt foolish. ‘The larger proportion of them perish uncelebrated.’

  The woman was not fazed by his bluntness. She’s used to this, he thought. Some women enjoyed flirting with legionaries, though he could not fathom for what reason. Women had been a mystery to him before his ascension to the XIII, and they only seemed more obtuse afterwards. She was very beautiful, and finely dressed. It did not matter to him.

  Theoretical, he told himself, you’re behaving like an oaf.

  Practical, he added, you are an oaf.

  ‘Something amuses you?’ she said. An ironic smile played on her lips, a smile that seem to say: where is the power if there is no potency?

  ‘No, no. A memory, that is all.’

  She looked at him expectantly.

  ‘It would not translate well,’ he said awkwardly. By the old gods, he wanted to get away.

  Corvo held out his glass, an oversized thing made for his oversized hands. A server stopped – his ewer was fit for men, but Corvo’s glass was fit for the sons of demigods, and the server used his full measure in charging it. The liquid ran up the side as it flowed into the bulb, the thick swell of it trailing a lesser curve of clear alcohol as it found its equilibrium.

  Not at all like the wall of blood that burst from the coffin ship. Not like that in the least.

  ‘That is some drink,’ said the woman. ‘If I were to drink it, I would not wake for a week.’ She was trying for levity, Corvo supposed. She was not intimidated by him.

  ‘Our lord is still at pains to make us feel part of humanity,’ he said. ‘A lesser amount would have no effect upon me whatsoever. We are supposed to be enjoying ourselves.’ He tried to hide his irritation, unsuccessfully.

  He sipped the drink. There was a hard burn to it. A good, strong Macragge pine brandy. Very fine vintage.

  ‘Will that help you to enjoy yourself, good sir?’

  ‘On
ly if I drink a lot, and quickly,’ he replied.

  The woman cradled her own glass in both hands, the drink untouched. ‘Does it work then? All this, talking to the little people. Does it make you feel like one of us?’

  Corvo looked over the gathering of humans and transhumans. They ignored the monster outside as they conversed and pretended that the sky was not red. They acted as if the galaxy had not been ripped asunder by fratricide, as if the order of all right things was not upset. If they could just pretend all was well, then all would be well. It was as much a pantomime as serving humans and giants from the same jug, or of pretending that their chairs were of equal size because they were made in the same style. He looked down upon the woman. She was so tiny, so frail. Of course it didn’t work.

  ‘I am one of you,’ said Corvo, and tried his hardest to believe it. ‘It is better not to forget our humanity in the first place, rather than seek to remind ourselves. That is my opinion.’

  ‘We have all heard what you did at Astagar. I doubt any human soldier could have done as you did.’

  Corvo’s smile became fixed. She sensed his irritation, and formed an expression of concern. ‘Oh no, no! Not just the Titan, sir. I do not talk of that – no doubt you are sick of it.’

  She was right.

  ‘I talk of your efforts in the rebuilding. I have family there,’ she explained.

  Corvo dipped his head in gratitude. ‘If only I could have seen it to the end. I was recalled for this ceremony. One week to destroy Eurythmia Civitas, and two years later it is still not set right. And I fear it never shall be.’

  ‘He is right, our Lord Guilliman.’ She cocked her head, appraising him. ‘You are as much an asset in peace as in war.’

  ‘We strive to be so,’ he said. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, mamzel?’

  ‘I am Medullina,’ she said with a slight curtsey.

  ‘Well then, Mamzel Medullina, I bid you enjoy the rest of the evening.’

  Corvo dipped his head to her and made his way through the crowd of worthies. He was courteous enough to move with purpose, as if he had somewhere else to be, though he did not. He headed for solitude, offered by the tall doors leading out onto the balcony. It was hard to navigate such fragile beings without damaging them – not a consideration he’d had in some while.

  The greatest luxury in Corvo’s recent life had been preparedness. He only heard the true, appalling scale of what had happened at Calth later, but by the time the enemy approached Astagar he was at least aware of the treachery. Corvo set the operational mark running as soon as the Word Bearers and World Eaters translated in-system, and his erstwhile cousins were met with a wall of fire.

  Why they even attacked Astagar was beyond Corvo, his incredulity at the waste of resources vying with the outrage of betrayal. It made no sense. Astagar had little strategic or symbolic value. He had not known then that wanton destruction was the traitors’ main intent.

  The force that attacked was commensurately small: five battle cruisers and attendant support – enough to ravage a lightly defended world, no more, no less. Good theoretical, perhaps, but the enemy’s intelligence was lacking. They reckoned without him.

  Corvo was not supposed to be there. He was en route to the muster at Calth but had been diverted by a malfunctioning warp engine on his command ship. Call it fate. Call it luck. Corvo believed in neither. He was there, and that was all that mattered.

  The manner of the enemy’s approach told him they were intent on a ground battle. So be it. He landed his own men and ordered his fleet to run out ahead of the enemy. A raid cost the foe five Army transports at minimal damage to Corvo’s ships. Satisfied that the enemy would thereafter have one eye over his shoulder, Corvo had his fleet withdraw. He would save the ships, if nothing else.

  Astagar’s modest orbital defences accounted for a portion more of the enemy’s strength before being overrun. Light bombardment of the principal habitation zones opened hostilities on the ground. Corvo was appalled at this prioritisation of civilian targets, but had had the presence of mind to send the population to the shelters away from the city. When the enemy commenced orbital insertion over Eurythmia Civitas it was empty but for six hundred Ultramarines and the seventy thousand men of the Astagarian Light Rangers.

  All this was in his report. Corvo was diligent. He put everything into the report, even the parts that he didn’t believe.

  Corvo was granted a brief respite. The balcony was typically grand in the Ultramar style, running all the way around the top of the Regia Civitatis’s extensive arcade. Intimate groupings of couches were dotted about, coloured lanterns and braziers of cheerful coals at their centres to blunt the bite of Macragge’s night. There were few people seated near them. Guilliman’s attention to detail in all things extended as far as ensuring that light pollution from the city did not drown out the stars, and the sky should have been ablaze with distant suns.

  It was not. It glowered a dull red. Only a single star burned beyond the lights of the orbitals and ships at anchor, and that was false – the Pharos, xenos technology illuminating Macragge from afar.

  Corvo walked to the balustrade and looked out. There were only a handful of cities so perfect. There were prettier, certainly, and definitely livelier ones. None, however, could match Magna Macragge Civitas’s perfect marriage of form and function.

  He breathed deeply. The sight of such order gave him pleasure.

  ‘The entire galaxy should have been like this.’

  Titus Prayto of the Librarius joined him at the rail. He wore his full plate, his head shadowed by an ornate technological cowl.

  ‘Librarian,’ said Corvo.

  ‘Captain.’

  ‘And what is your role in this charade, Prayto? Do you not undo our lord’s intentions, alienating the people as you stride about with witchfire in your eyes and your body cased in ceramite?’

  ‘An assassination attempt by the Alpha Legion. Konrad Curze so recently at large, here in the city. The creatures from beyond the veil embraced and welcomed by our kinsmen? Alienation is the least of concerns.’

  ‘You are another watchdog then.’ Corvo offered his drink. Prayto took it carefully in his gauntleted hand. His armour whined softly as he lifted it to his lips and drank half of it down. He handed it back.

  ‘Call me that, for that is what I am. My talents and those of the rest of the Librarius help to safeguard our lord and his brothers. There are three of the Emperor’s loyal sons here, together. Such a target. The Pharos lights the way for our enemies just as it does for our allies.’ They looked up at the Pharos shining in the red sky. ‘And what horrors I look for…’

  ‘You will find none in me.’

  ‘I will not?’ asked Prayto.

  ‘Surely, you have looked.’

  Prayto gave a little laugh. He did not take his eye from the Pharos. ‘I have. You are what you say you are, a loyal son of Ultramar. You do not say much, though, and you are hard to read. You are a closed man, Captain Corvo.’

  ‘I find chatter tiresome,’ he said. ‘I prefer to leave talk to those who enjoy it.’

  ‘You put me in mind of the Lion.’

  Corvo shook his head. ‘The Lion is a master of secrets. It is in the nature of the secretive to hold their own thoughts mysterious, yet to demand the revelation of the thoughts of others. I care as much for secrets and revelation as I do for conversation.’

  ‘This gathering is a chore for you, then.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Each to his own. Be careful you do not appear too aloof or ungrateful.’

  ‘Thank you, centurion,’ said Corvo. ‘I am always mindful of that. It is the burden of those who share my mindset. Talkers talk, and they do not understand those who do not feel the need to speak. To sidestep their concern, we are forced to perform against our inclination, engaging in pointless discourse, while they prattle on and do not listen to what we have to say anyway.’

  The Librarian laughed again, louder this time. ‘A joke from yo
u, Corvo?’

  ‘I am not without humour.’

  ‘No, no.’ Prayto was silent a space. He pressed his hands onto the balustrade twice. The metal clicked on the stone. ‘I will not detain you.’

  ‘Speak what is on your mind. I do not have your gift, but I know you did not follow me out here to talk of man’s temperament.’

  ‘I did not,’ he agreed. ‘I came out because I have a sense of what you intend to do tomorrow. I would give you some advice, if you’d take it.’

  Corvo looked out over the city. Warning lights winked on cranes over the Via Decmanus Maximus. There, a new proscenium was being raised. He wondered what kind of victory it was for Ultramar, when more than a hundred worlds had died.

  ‘I am not surprised you sense my intention,’ he muttered. ‘It is at the forefront of my thoughts. What is this advice you have?’

  ‘I urge you to reconsider.’

  ‘I will not reconsider,’ said Corvo. ‘Our lord will understand.’

  ‘Of course he will!’ Prayto exclaimed. ‘But your peers will likely not.’

  ‘My deeds speak for themselves.’

  ‘Our deeds do not always speak the truth for us,’ Prayto countered.

  Corvo downed his drink and left his glass on the stone rail.

  ‘That is not my concern. Only the truth is true, whether people believe it to be so or not. That is all I care for. Good evening, brother.’

  He went back inside.

  The coffin ship was hit several times and came down trailing fire, damaged braking thrusters on its port underside guttering. A lance beam slashed down from orbit, missing the craft by a hundred metres and demolishing a tower block. The shock wave staggered the lander, huge though it was, and it yawed dangerously, functioning jets shooting intense bursts of flame. It struggled upright, drifting out over the Via Longia toward the city centre, where the buildings were densely packed.

  It was coming down too fast. Corvo didn’t think that it would manage to land intact. True enough, when it hit, it levelled entire civic blocks and sent out a wash of gritty dust that billowed through the dying city’s streets.